Flavia at Tanatos Isle

[bunn]

This is Flavia, from Rosemary Sutcliff's 'The Lantern Bearers'. She is Aquila's sister, who was carried off by raiding Saxons: I wrote a story about her last year. This is shortly after she arrives at Hengest's new burgh on Tanatos (Thanet), where the Saxons have only recently landed and are now busily building places to live: hence the rather rough finish of the walls.

Watercolour pencils.  I've never quite got on with watercolour pencils, but I have a pile of them that were given to me years ago, and I got a waterbrush recently, so I decided to give them another go.  So I drew this in coloured pencil, then I waterbrushed over it to make the colours more vibrant.   I don't think I have her skin colour quite right - I wanted her to have slightly more olive skin - but I was worried about overworking it so I stopped.

Comments

[seascribe.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love her face! Her features are so distinctive.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I reckoned she had to have at least a hint of the family nose :-D

I'm hoping to draw a happier picture of her later, maybe with her son, now I have worked out more clearly what I think she should look like.